Design Education Is Like a Marathon, Not a Sprint
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Everyone can design.
But not everyone should.
That sounds stony, I know.
We strive to keep our field as inclusive and open as possible, which is a genuinely noble idea.
The harsh truth is that this occupation, like others, is not for everybody.
If you have recently started taking your first steps in product or UX design, don’t stop reading. This article is not meant to discourage you from pursuing your dream of becoming a designer one day. I truly keep my fingers crossed for you and your success.
Instead, it’s meant to trigger a broader discussion about design education, which I think is urgently needed. We might be experiencing a little crisis caused by boot camps* and their greedy founders.
Table of contents:
The idea behind boot camps
Motivation of successful designers
Ethical issues of some boot camps
Report from a study on boot camp grads’ job status
One thing no boot camp will teach you
An algorithm for deciding on signing up for a boot camp
*Not all boot camps are evil. Some great ones exist where students work on real problems with actual clients. Only a part of them cause issues. I’ll not point fingers, but you’ll figure it out from reading the text. It applies to every single market.
Nine women won’t give birth in one month
And a fast-paced intensive three or six-month course won’t make you a designer instantly either.
The original idea of boot camps was to shorten the time needed to acquire a particular set of skills required to do a job well. Usually, a job is taught at a university over the course of three (or more) years. Postgraduate studies are shorter as, in most cases, they demand just two semesters. However, this is a different story because the students must present a diploma when joining, proving they have previous experience and knowledge.
Spending only three months on learning instead of three years sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? But the reality is way different. The curriculums of a three-year university course and a three-month boot camp can’t be the same. Ergo, you won’t learn as much or gain as much experience on a boot camp as a university grad would.
Ergo, your chances of landing a job might be lower. It might, but it doesn’t have to. I know numerous successful designers who didn’t attend a design university course or a boot camp.
So how did they succeed?
Passion first. Money will follow
Whenever I speak to my design friends or candidates as a hiring manager about their motivation for becoming designers, I usually hear one of the following statements:
The problem-solving nature of UX design is a strong magnet that has attracted me since the early days and has also made me stay.
I have a lot of empathy for others, and it is easy to imagine myself in their shoes. UX design is a perfect occupation for utilizing such a soft skill.
The impact I make on the lives of people using the apps I build with my team is something you can’t put a price on.
Nobody mentions money, but they make really good dollars. Nobody says they were after software development, but they were too dumb to do this, so they took the design path. They know UX design isn’t easy.
They came to this field for something else. For many, it’s not a job they would hate. It’s not like everything we do in our jobs is easy peasy. Everybody has a specific type of task they don’t enjoy doing, but they know it’s important to tick it off. And still, they don’t just show up every morning at nine and wait impatiently all day to see how the clock’s hand makes it to five. These people are designers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Not work-wise, but rather lifestyle-wise. It’s about the wine they drink. The furniture they surround themselves with. The books they read. And how they see the world and its problems.
The essence of growing and succeeding in this field is simply loving this job. Passion, not money, should fuel the search for new skills and enable personal development.
You might need to consider doing something else for a living if you don't have the spark.
Let’s talk ethics
I need to confess something. If you have ever checked my LinkedIn profile, you know I’ve been on the other side, acting as a boot camp mentor.
Wait, what?
It’s true. I’ve been running a class and one-on-one mentorship meetings for about eleven months. It has been one of my life's worst and most eye-opening experiences.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ve met numerous excellent students and wonderful mentors, but the system I was a piece of was evil. The part I hated the most? Every time I met someone struggling who would probably never succeed in design, I wanted to advise them to quit this course and file for a refund. But I was not allowed to, under any circumstance.
However, this is not the worst thing about this business. Students feeling lost is an implication of the aggressive marketing:
Right, these are not the actual ads. I just rephrased a few I remembered from the past, but the meaning is the same. Some boot camps create an illusion that after taking their course, you will land a well-paid job that is less complex than programming. That’s bullshit.
How many people who had a vague idea of UX design at the moment of seeing one of those ads got hooked, paid 5, 10, or 15k, got certified, didn’t get a job, and now don’t stand much of a chance to land one soon?
The life of a boot camp grad has a sour taste
A few months ago, I asked the Polish community of boot camp grads about their job status. Here are my findings (p=48, online questionnaire):
Only 14.6% of boot camp grads land a job in design.
23% can’t land a job for more than a year after getting a certificate.
58% of grads who landed a job needed more than four months to do that.
12.5% of grads discovered UX right before the boot camp. 25% of grads got interested in UX six months before boot camp, 20% between six and twelve months, and 42% twelve months.
In a multi-choice question about motivation to sign up for a boot camp, 75% of grads selected “Ability to gain new skills in a short time,” 71% selected “Chance to create a portfolio,” and 35.4% selected “Guarantee of landing a high-paying job.”
Only 27% answered the question about other online classes or university courses they took.
Breaking into UX and product design nowadays is extremely difficult, and nobody should be surprised that at least 85% of boot camp grads can’t land a job immediately. Some have to stay unemployed for a year after getting certified. Boot camps are one factor, but not the only one. I covered other reasons for the present condition and the possible scenarios for the future of the design job market in one of the previous editions of this newsletter:
What struck me the most was that more than 35% of respondents believed the boot camp ad, claiming it would be an easy way to get a well-paid job, and that 12.5% of respondents didn’t have any interest in UX design until they signed up for a boot camp. What’s worse, they paid for it the same amount of money they were promised to start making monthly after finishing the course—and they were promised nice dollars.
I understand education is a business, and the boot camp’s owners need to make money, but this kind of advertisement should be illegal. Attracting prospects with potentially high salaries in design and IT, in general, is unfair. People will not learn enough at a boot camp to start working in this field immediately, and no one can guarantee them jobs.
Teaching the right mindset is a long process
The problem needing a fix is twofold:
Through their aggressive marketing campaigns, some boot camps create an illusion of a super easy way to quickly break into the UX design field and land a well-paid job.
The quality of learning over three or six months is relatively low, and it does not cover all essential topics.
We have already addressed the first part of the problem statement. The second part, however, directly correlates with boot camps' foremost goal: shortening the learning time.
While you can try to teach some of the most popular UX design methods and tools, training the right mindset quickly is not doable. It takes time and experience. Students must dive deep into their projects and, ideally, work on multiple things. They can only grasp a few methods in three months and barely complete one project.
In effect, they treat every project the same way. They go through the same linear path and use the same methods. However, great designers are flexible and use the proper methods in the right place and order. That’s what comes with experience.
A warning for newcomers
If you are currently at a crossroads thinking of signing up for a boot camp, and willing to break into design soon, ask yourself the following questions:
Have I tried to learn UX design using free learning material, free or inexpensive classes, and with free mentors?
Have I made my first project utilizing the knowledge I gained from free or inexpensive learning material by helping a local business, attending a hackathon, or volunteering for an NGO?
Am I 100% sure that UX design could be my thing? Do I enjoy thinking about design problems, digging into them by talking to people and trying to understand their needs better, designing digital solutions, and displaying my work for feedback and evaluation?
Do I want to spend limited time with design practitioners, organize my previously gained knowledge, complete another project for my portfolio, and get certified for 5-15k?
How many positive answers did you get? Consider signing up for a boot camp only if it was a “yes” for all four questions. But be careful. Check the course’s curriculum. Google the names of the teachers and mentors and check their experience and achievements. Look for the course online ratings. Make sure it’s the right place to spend your money.
Three or fewer positive answers? Don’t even try. You will most likely regret throwing your money away. When unsure if the design is the right thing for you, investing a lot of money initially would be immature. It won't work either if you want to speed up your learning.
Becoming a UX designer is like a marathon, not a sprint.
Remember that there are no shortcuts.
Learning takes time and energy.
Photo credit
Cover photo by Braden Collum.
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